Author

Award Date

Degree Type

Degree Name

Department

Geoscience

First Committee Member

Andrew Hanson, Chair

Second Committee Member

Gene Smith

Third Committee Member

Wanda Taylor

Graduate Faculty Representative

Susan Meacham

Number of Pages

94

Abstract

Understanding the evolution of large-scale fault systems remains a challenge to geologists and is of critical importance in understanding the dynamics of larger plate tectonic interactions. I mapped the southwestern Frenchman Mountain Fault (FMF), conducted a basin analysis of units in the footwall of the fault, and measured kinematic indicators along the fault zone in order to constrain fault offset, magnitude, and timing in an attempt to further our understanding of these systems.

My findings include: 1) the presence of vertical and sub-vertical slickenlines on southwest dipping fault surfaces indicative of normal sense offset; 2) relatively little lateral variation in stratigraphy within the adjacent basin indicating basin-fill being shed directly across the fault, supported by paleocurrent data; and 3) no kinematic evidence indicative of strike-slip motion. I conclude that normal sense displacement on the fault ceased prior to deposition of the Red Sandstone. In addition, I hypothesize that the southwestern FMF is not the Frenchman Mountain block-bounding fault; instead it is buried beneath younger sediments farther to the southwest.